Internship at Brigham Young University in Provo (Utah)

For my internship, I went the first time to the USA. After 24 hours of traveling to the other side of the world, For my internship, I went the first time to the USA. After 24 hours of traveling to the other side of the world, two breakfast and three lunches, we finally arrived to our host families. To be honest, at first I was scared of these people that I have never met before, but only after several minutes talking with them I found out they were the most gracious personalities. I’m proud to call them as my second family now.
At the next day, we had our first class. We did some computing with MATLAB an easy programming language suited for physical purposes. We simulated some graphs, the movement of a throwing ball and even the earth. We had a really good support from our teacher and gained useful knowledge to improve our computing skills. In the next period we were leaving the computers and went to the good old circuits. Before we were allowed to craft our circuits, we had had to do the theory first. We read the chapters together and used the laws and formulas to solve interesting problems. Then we proved our solutions by building the circuits and measured the values. Most of the time we had pretty solid numbers, but when we got stuck we needed some energy again (pun is intended here ;) and we went to the biggest motivation refill that you can imagine. You are right. We had a break and ate lunch. That doesn’t sound spectacular, but it was terrific. It was our first AMERICAN lunch and immediately I fell in love with the American-Mexican food. We made friends with a couple of BYU students who started to talk with us during break and walked back to finish our circuits. In the last hours of our first school day we met Dr. Peatross who organized the whole trip and hosted two of us. He showed us a very funny experiment. But while the high- performance laser got heated up, he explained us his job as a physicist and a teacher. In this moment I realized that even at the other side of the world they are doing the same things as we do in Germany. Because I expected something totally different at the university, but you couldn’t tell you were in an American University till the people started talking in English. After I found out they are just humans as we are, the laser was ready. Dr. Peatross took out a one dollar bill and we honored George Washington by burning his nose of. To be more specific, we ionized some molecules in the air and with that energy we were able to deface George Washington on the bill. One of us even got the bill after showing his courage by touching the sparkle.
To sum up, this is how our typical day at the university looked like: computing in the morning, then learning about the circuits and in the last part of the day we did some cool experiments. But one day, our circuits teacher was ill and therefore we had a pretty good excuse to visit the astronomy department.
We traveled trough the whole universe and explored the Milky Way. No, we didn’t play Star Wars, we just sat in a huge planetarium. Dr. Peatross showed us the star constellations, which is pretty helpful, because now I always know where the north is and I can’t get lost. In addition it was really magnificent to watch the stars and planets in 3D. It seemed like you can touch every part, because it was such in detail and realistic. In the days we didn’t have class, we explored Utah and made astonishing activities and trips. Like biking the famous trail in Moab or just ice skating in the town. We camped in the mountains
the world they are doing the same things as we do in Germany. Because I expected something totally different at the university, but you couldn’t tell you were in an American University till the people started talking in English. After I found out they are just humans as we are, the laser was ready. Dr. Peatross took out a one dollar bill and we honored George Washington by burning his nose of. To be more specific, we ionized some molecules in the air and with that energy we were able to deface George Washington on the bill. One of us even got the bill after showing his courage by touching the sparkle.
To sum up, this is how our typical day at the university looked like: computing in the morning, then learning about the circuits and in the last part of the day we did some cool experiments. But one day, our circuits teacher was ill and therefore we had a pretty good excuse to visit the astronomy department. We traveled trough the whole universe and explored the Milky Way. No, we didn’t play Star Wars, we just sat in a huge planetarium. Dr. Peatross showed us the star constellations, which is pretty helpful, because now I always know where the north is and I can’t get lost. In addition it was really magnificent to watch the stars and planets in 3D. It seemed like you can touch every part, because it was such in detail and realistic. In the days we didn’t have class, we explored Utah and made astonishing activities and trips. Like biking the famous trail in Moab or just ice skating in the town. We camped in the mountains and crawled trough the canyons. We repelled into deep caves and hiked 6,000 feet to Angels Landing in Zion. We did rafting on several rivers and went to the Stadium of Fire on July 4 where Keith Urban played a live concert. Of course, the last but not least, we did several barbecues as well and met some new people. This was a fast summary of the activities, I didn’t even mention all of them, but otherwise this report would be too long. I guess you have to apply for the TUM and visit Utah on your own to get the whole experience.

** Advice for those who want to make the same internship:

1.) Take some good german/swiss chocolate with you as a present for your host families. They love it!
2.) Always offer your help like cleaning or cooking. They take care of you without getting any money for that. So give the same love back and be thankful to be able to stay there.
3.) Say yes to everything! You will only be there for several weeks and it would be a pity to miss something out. Therefore use every opportunity and have fun. (you can’t mess up, because you will fly back to Germany and nobody knows what you’ve done there)